HIT - Longest River

[Eleanor Schuster <EFSchuster@AOL.COM>]

Thank you everyone for your responses. You are a wonderful and fascinating
group of people who must look at every angle of a question. This is why I
love this field. I hadn't planned on posting a hit, but there were so many
interesting responses. Here goes:
In a nutshell, a 4th grade student thought he saw some information stating
that the Amazon was the longest river. I tried to find out where he found
this and if it was now considered a 'fact.' Basically, it boils down to
volume vs length. These are your responses. I apologize if I inadvertently
left out a response:

The best resource for "world records" is the Guiness Book of World Records.
Check it for this category.  It's the authority!!! Jim
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Eleanor, it depends what you mean by 'largest'. The Amazon is the
'largest river in the world by volume' while the Nile is the 'largest
river in the world by length' (Websters Geographic Dictionary) - Dan
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The Nile  River flows 4145 miles while the Amazon measures right at 4000
miles. However , the Amazon does carry more water than any other river in
the world-more than the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze Rivers
combined according to World Book. Janice
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Perhaps your student saw some outdated information.  I remember
reading, years ago, a book about the Amazon from the National
Geographic Society.  As I recall it stated that, based on the
discovery of a longer tributary, the Amazon had been determined to be
longer than the Nile.  However, this was before the days of satellite
mapping, and must have been determined to be wrong. Cindy
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Earle is right, in that it depends where you start measuring, but
About.com (quoting Britannica online) says that the Nile, at 4241 mi.
(6825 km) "barely beats out" the Amazon at 6437 km (4231.5 mi), but that
the Amazon "wins hands down as the largest river system, both in area
covered and in volume of water. Joyce
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Using Google (http://www.google.com) I typed in <"longest river"
Amazon> and found the following site.  It seems to address the problem of
which is the longest river and why:  Greenkeepers.
http://www.greenkeepers.com/index.html?999999&atPage=gknews/1.html

"The Amazon, flowing southward across Brazil in the broad
equatorial part of South America, has the world's largest drainage basin,
more
than 7 million sq./km. (2.7 million sq./mi. ), or nearly 5% of the world's
total land area. It carries nearly 20% of the Earth's total water discharge
to                                   the ocean in a flow so powerful that it
perceptibly dilutes the ocean
water of the Atlantic 160 km (100 mi) beyond the coastline. The Amazon has
                              long been considered the world's second-longest
river, after the Nile,
with a length of about 6,450 km (4,000 mi). In 1994, however, a Peruvian
                            research team declared that the river's true
source was the Ucayli
River, not the Maranon, which may make the Amazon the longest river in the
                              world." Jamie
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If you will check  the following web site http://www.pbs.org
and then search for the longest river it will give you the program and date
and information on the Amazon river . Barbara (I searched briefly, but didn't
find this exact program - I'll look again when I have more time - Eleanor)
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I love stumpers!  It means that the children are going beyond "It's in
Worldbook" and gives me a chance to work with them on how the question is
worded, what definitions people use to answer questions, how things are
measured, and on and one.

Can I give an example :  one spot along the British Columbia-Alberta border
is posted as the Great Divide - waters from one side flow into the Arctic,
while the other into the Pacific.  My own children posed the question - at
what exact spot on the creek does this occur?  We took a look at all sorts
of things and discovered, like the philosophical question "What is art?",
that there is no clear answer.

The question on the rivers is a great one (and I don't know the answer),
but the two answers are probably correct - the question is what is included
in the "longest".

The question of bias is even better with the classic example of the Wright
Brothers being the first to fly, when there are other examples of flight
that should be considered.  (The story I was told was that the Wrights
provided the museum with the plane on the condition that it would always
suggest that the Wrights were the first)

We can provide students with access to information.  I marvel at those who
go beyond. Earl
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It may depend on how you measure length. The Nile wins for continuous
length, but it may be that the Amazon wins, if you were to add up the length
of all of it's tributaries? Garry
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In geo class I always thought the Nile was the longest (travels North also!)
and the Amazon was the largest ( i.e. it carries the highest volume of
water) John
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I believe the Nile is the longest in lenght, but the Amazon has the
greatest volume of water.  It's a great lesson in that there are many
ways to measure "large." Marsha
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Could be wrong about this but I think I remember hearing some debate about
this -- and it depends on how you measure.  I believe that the Amazon has
more miles of waterway, if you count tributaries, side branches etc., but
if you count only the main stream from beginning to end, the Nile is
longer.  The confusion may be over how the measurement is taken.  Hope this
helps - Linda
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